The Anthropocene: all that CO2 and the only mammal extinction is a brown rat on a desert island

Where’s the apocalypse: With all the forecasts of doom, is this it?

Global Lament is rising for the small brown rat (Melomys rubicola) lost off a desert island no one heard of til morning tea today. This is a rat that was only recognised as a distinct species in 1995, though even then, it was debated, and the rat’s existence was hanging by a thread. The island is a 5 hectare sand spit with a bit of low scrub and an old rusty scaffold once called a lighthouse. So it’s all of 0.05 square kilometers: it is so small there is no fresh water on the island, just the odd puddle after it rains. It’s all so ephemeral that over a decade or so the island shrank 40% and the vegetation was wiped out by 97% (details below). Life on shifting sands in the Torres Strait is all pathetically desperate. It’s 200km off Queensland but only 50km from Papua New Guinea and the highest point (if you could call it that) is 3m about the high tide mark. In other words, any decent wave could have washed the last one off. It’s sad, but it’s not “climate change”.

No one is quite sure how the brown rats got there, some researchers ambitiously speculate that they might be a relic of the old Australian-PNG land bridge. That would mean they miraculously survived there for 9,000 years through super cyclones, tsunamis and surges. On the other hand, the same researchers suggest they might have drifted on a log from Fly River in PNG, or just hopped off a fishing boat that anchors nearby. No one really knows. Perhaps a cat hopped off a fishing boat too?

What’s the chance that sandspit may have been wiped out and rebuilt many times and then repopulated — apparently even whole palm trees are washed up from Papua New Guinea.

These cays are geologically temporary features of considerable instability, which may respond dramatically to fluctuations in their environment (Gourlay 1983). This inherent instability is well documented elsewhere, for example Green Island near Cairns has a long history of shoreline construction and erosion (Baxter 1990).

[ABC] For thousands of years, generations of Melomys rubicola lived and bred on a sandy bank in the Torres Strait known as Bramble Cay. Some time between 2009 and 2014 the last of this species died; probably drowned in a storm surge.

Scientists say there is a chance that an identical or similar species could yet be discovered in PNG. But they’re uncertain because PNG’s nearby Key River region has been little documented by research.

The ABC rolls out the predictable “not cute enough to save” excuse to explain our careless failure as a nation. It’s as if Australians have all the maturity of the average three year old and only rescue stuffed toys.

Unlike koalas or whales, the small rodent was never cute enough to rate much of a conservation effort. It’s only with its extinction – noted for the first time by the Federal Government, in a press release from Environment Minister Melissa Price – that it’s attracted interest from beyond the circle of biologists and conservationists that warned of its demise.

Sure, rats are not cute and rescuable like Great White Sharks and Saltwater Crocs are. Will the national self flagellation never end? Australians will give our firstborns to a tiger shark rather than kill it for fish and chips but that doesn’t stop the ABC from implying we are all selfish and immature. Lordy, we didn’t spend millions to save it, nor did we rush up to the distant cay and adopt these rats as pets. Though if we had done that and actually saved one, we’d have been breaking the law.

Almost the whole island is protected by the Native Title Act. A lot of good it did the dead rats.

Euan Mearns found a UQ report showing that fully half the islands meagre vegetation was stripped by storm surges from 2004 to 2011.

Worse, they way I read it, by 2014 the Cay itself had shrunk to 2.5 ha from 4 ha. The vegetation had suffered a catastrophic 97% loss.

Nevertheless, a worrying finding from the March 2014 assessment was that due to erosion by wind, waves and tides impacting on the island (refer to Limpus et al. 1983, Dennis & Storch 1998) the cay’s area above high tide had decreased from the approximately 4 ha reported in 1998 to only 2.5 ha, apparently the smallest size documented for the island to date (Dennis & Storch 1998, Ellison 1998, Latch 2008). Furthermore, the herbaceous vegetation on Bramble Cay, which provides both food and shelter for the Bramble Cay melomys (Dennis & Storch 1998), declined dramatically from approximately 2.2 ha in 2004 to only 0.065 ha, equivalent to a 97% loss over a decade (Gynther et al. 2014a). Birds roosting amongst this vegetation in March 2014 further reduced habitat availability for the Bramble Cay melomys because the species is known to avoid areas in which numerous seabirds roost at night (Dennis & Storch 1998, Gynther et al. 2014a)

There has been speculation that the species may also occur on other islands in the Torres Strait or in Papua New Guinea (PNG), given the close proximity of the cay to the mouth of the Fly River, which regularly deposits large amounts of debris (e.g., logs and assorted driftwood, whole palm trees and other vegetation) on Bramble Cay. Further survey work on these islands and PNG, along with clarification of the taxonomic status of the Bramble Cay melomys in relation to PNG species, is required (Latch 2008).

Whole palm trees. Hmmm.

For those of you wondering if it is indeed a different species, Peter Latch said something like Yes, probably, maybe:

Bramble Cay melomys is recognised as a distinct species (Strahan 1995) despite some uncertainty about the designation of species within the Melomys genus (Flannery 1995, Dickman et al. 2000). Menzies (1996) in his systematic revision of the Melomys in PNG did not assess Melomys rubicola despite its close proximity to PNG. Dennis and Storch (1998) reassessed its taxonomic status on both morphological and genetic grounds and found that M. rubicola is the most morphologically distinct melomys in Australia based on discriminate analysis of a number of features. They also found that M. rubicola has a distinct mtDNA gene sequence when compared to other Australian melomys. While the genetic differences between mtDNA sequences cannot prescribe specific status unequivically, it was concluded that if they do indicate that M. cervinipes, M. capensis and M. burtoni are distinct species, then M. rubicola should also be recognised as a distinct species.

What’s the difference between weather and climate? If the world stops warming for 15 or 20 years that’s “not” climate change, but if a weekend storm surge wipes out a rat, living precariously on a sand bar it’s The First Mammal Extinction caused by your car. Give us your money.

That rat represents the collective brainpower of our current crop of politicians. As such it is a symbol of the nations political extinction. Its a “rat” election, an “Extinction Level Event”. The year of the rat is no more.

We must wipe out all fossils fuels to save the rest of the rats, sorry, politicians.

Each week our local rag publishes the same old letters from the same old people complaining about the destruction of the Earth that will occur if logging goes ahead in a small copse of trees that were always destined to be logged.

A copse of trees that represents a pin head in the overall landscape of trees in Victoria alone, ‘will’ cause the destruction of the planet. This is a firm belief.

Now another repeat letter writer has stated that logging these trees will cause the loss of insects (he heard it on ABC radio) and result in the destruction of the landscape and eventually the world. This too is a firm belief.

I kid you not, these are the contents of actual letters written by people involved in a lobby group protesting some trees that most locals wouldn’t have know existed or ever visited, other than those gathering firewood. I’m keeping copies of all of this as a record.

Sometimes trees are planted to be logged when they have matured. Does anyone know the history of the patch of land and the copse concerned?
Because if they were planted to be logged, then who should care when the loggers turn up as originally intended?

Our area came into being as a logging town, even a railway was built in 1885 to transport logs down to the Latrobe Valley. The area concerned and another nearby have always been designated for logging.

Logging still occurs all around the surrounding area to this day, yet for some reason these people have gone somewhat insane over these two locations.

One copse few know about or can see and is really only accessible by 4WD and the other is along the Strzelecki Hwy where no one can see anything because of a high embankment and a very windy and steep road.

The Strzelecki Hwy copse is cross-crossed by trail bike tracks and increasing undergrowth and fuel loads, hardly an ecological haven. Logging would make the area, including large adjacent forest reserves that cannot be logged, a lot safer given their location.

After studying satellite images, & the accounts of the nature of the Oz woodlands, scientists have decided, but would never publish, that there are now at least double the number of trees in Oz, that there were at first European settlement

It can’t be the trees then. It must be some sort of seen-only-once-forty-years-ago but must-be-saved-at-any-cost rare animal like a Snark.
Hmm, it would be laugh if their Snark turned out to be a Boojum.

Say, didn’t Tim Flannery claim, in ‘The Future Eaters,’ that the forests of Easter Island were denuded by islanders to make rafts to move their statues, and isn’t that deforestation now being blamed instead on Polynesian seed-eating rats?

Several years ago, while visiting Perth, I recall the frenzied destruction of beautiful elegant willow trees, deemed by the politically correct dogma of the local council authority as non-indigenous invaders.

I wonder in this current moment, whether the open borders globalism of those riven by identity politics and cultural Marxism now accept those poor willow trees with open arms?

Old Brew you live in UK so are not to know that Melomys are different to the rats and mice of Europe. Most Melomys are indigenous. Those that are in PNG and parts of Indonesia are south of the Wallace line which is similar to most Australian birds. Melomys are in fact wuite cute. The size is between the imported rats (sewer & ship) and the imported mouse. We recently had a fawn footed Melomy (common on the coastal strip of SE Qld) about 70mm long with a tail about 110mm – rats and mice have a tail shorter than the body. The droppings are small 1-2 mm wide and 3-5 mm long. It ran into a box so I could take it to the bush at the edge of our property. I would say it might be food for the pythons and goannas around the place. Can I say again Melomys are cute unloke rats.

Will somebody please call our leading mammologist Tim Flannery specializing in dead mammals. Only he can help us now. And the rats. Make him Chief Rat Commissioner. Perhaps his Rat Council can help too. I would guess that $444million might start the program. There’s no time to quibble about a few million. Rat lives are at stake!

Dr Flannery might just be the man for this occasion. Note Peter Latch makes reference to him, among others. Flannery, 1995. Mammals Of The South-West Pacific & Moluccan Islands. Cornell University Press. Dr Tim might be out of his depth on many other climate matters, but on this topic his opinion should be worth something.

This phrase “They also found that M. rubicola has a distinct mtDNA gene sequence when compared to other Australian melomys” caught my eye. Why were they comparing this rat with those 200km. away and not with any 50kms. away (and upstream of any tree bearing floods).

Nah, no such luck. It could have been just resting.
Out of sight.
Where’s the evidence it is no more? Any fossilised bones?
Maybe it got hungry and swam away — rats are pretty good swimmers.
(In NZ, we know that. We are constantly finding them, in small numbers, popping up on islands used as native bird sanctuaries which are maintained as rodent-free. The trouble is, the rats can’t read. They see these islands as “competition free” therefore possibly desirable real estate. As Graeme No.3 points out: 50km is a realistic, more or less, range.)

NZ saved a wallaby from extinction. I remember the roundup and re-shipping home of the saved strays. They were occupying an island near Auckland at that time.

I was in Melbourne in the summer of 1990/91 and spent a Sunday exploring St Kilda Park on foot. I came across a public meeting in the `Rosebowl’ so stopped and listened. I had missed much of it but was in time to catch the agenda item about having the Bushy Tailed ‘Possum declared `endangered.’ I saw some people having convulsions towards the front. They must have been fellow Kiwis, because one of them asked the speaker: `How many million do you want? They’re a pest in New Zealand, and if you really don’t want them endangered, we can round them up and ship them home in whatever quantities you would like.’

Well, that idea wasn’t accepted so we’re still stuck with millions of those pests which think our forests are Possum Ice Cream, and the Bushy Tailed Possum is an officially endangered species in Victoria. They’re now well established in the greenery within Auckland City, making pests of themselves, which they do rather well.

Therefore, if youse guys ever do run out of Bushy Tailed Possums, we are keen if not eager to help re-establish them! Minimum quantity is a zillion!

‘There are no wild kangaroos, but there are wild, non-native wallabies in a few places in New Zealand, Kawau Island is the best known but they also are found in the central North Islands around Lake Tarawera and near Oamaru in the South Island.’ Quora

Thanks for that, I had no idea and may I be the first to apologise over the possum invasion, it happened before my time.

I thought that comment might be ‘moderated’ and was ready to defend it by pointing to the claim by Richard Marles, a Labor frontbencher, and Adam Brandt the Green about how desirable the complete shut down of Australia’s coal industry would be.

Query: How do you make a frontbencher
Answer: You start with 2 thick planks.

Seriously (and it’s pretty hard to be serious here ), the possum was introduced to NZ’s forests sometime in the 19th C., to “establish a fur industry”. Trapping for possum skins used to be a fairly lucrative occupation, until the %#@$ing Greens wrecked the global fur industry for other reasons. The possums, which thought New Zealand’s forests are “Possum Ice Cream™” (pat pending) and still do, were left alone so of course, now the only form of predation had gone, they set about breeding and wrecking the forests. Possum damage is immediately visible and is of staggering proportions.

A bit of private enterprise just after the discovery that possums, like rats, weasels, stoats and feral cats liked to eat protected native birds amd especially protected native birds’ eggs—they were caught on camera!—managed to get a sort of an industry going again. Possum-fur coats are available again. If you find one, check the label: country of origin is NZ, and check it’s Genuine Possum Fur. If it is, buy it. If you do, a forest somewhere in NZ will thank you and take it’s first steps towards recovery. And while you’re at it: buy them for all your friends and rellies too!

Brush tailed possums are listed as rare & endangered because all them have abandoned their native habitat !

They have all moved into the green suburbs of our towns & cities. They are the thumps and bumps and growls we here at night on the roof and in the roof cavity.

There is quite an effort in Adelaide to relocate Brush tail possums from urban roof cavities back to their native habitat. But it seems that the brush tail possums prefer the suburbs.

decades ago there was a mob of Parma wallabies in the ‘Jock Sturock reserve’ on Monash university in North Clayton. The Parmas had become extinct in Australia in the 1890′s but were rediscovered in New Zealand on some island being an exotic pest ! A wallaby native to SA ( I forget the name ) which was also extinct here in SA was later rediscovered in New Zealand…And has been reintroduced to its native land.

That figures! Possums are not thought of as particularly smart critters but they sure can survive!
And in a country where there is no natural (nor even an unnatural) predator and Ice Cream grows in humungous quantities, then there is a continuous population explosion!

Rats are persistent feral invaders
Of any where they can get to
Some times they get to places
that are impermanent
Like this tiny sandy cay
Off the coast of PNG.
And they die from lack of water or food or cover
or bird attack, or storms.
Certainly no humans involved
from Australia.

So what to make of this ‘news’ ?
Just more poor quality propaganda !
From ‘GREENDOZE’ designed
to make us ALL feel guilty.

Leftists (US = liberals) love free tropical vacations at taxpayer expense. Why don’t they go to PNG and look for it there (where it probably came from in the first place). Personally, I think the island is too unstable to allow speciation to happen in the first place. In any case, they knew the rat was low in numbers since 1995 so why didn’t they try a captive breeding program? I bet they wanted to make a sacrifice to appease their Climate Change™ gods.

A final point. Anti-science Leftists (a tautology, I know) think the climate is unchanging and it’s not. The same with species. They come and they go. That’s how evolution works. This rat was not fit for purpose so was deleted from the gene pool (on the island, perhaps not in PNG).

I don’t trust any “science” involving Leftists. As with the alteration of historical temperature data, we need to check that this rat was indeed confirmed by real non-corrupt scientists to be a separate species.

Australia’s largest coal miner Glencore has succumbed to shareholder pressure to take action to address climate change, and announced it will cap its global coal output.

This doesn’t sound right. Why would an investor want to restrict production? The only answer is if the same investors had an interest in shutting down cheap coal power so they could make more money out of the climate change™ sc@m that they are also invested in.

And further, how Glencore has changed its tune; only a couple of years ago the company was warning us that we needed to straighten up and fly right but this decision signals that it has resigned itself to acquiescing in the free for all of financial scavengers picking the bones now the country’s irretrievably buggered.

Donald’s trade warm has slowed down the world economy, so China is knocking back coal imports because their larder is full as exports falter. Keeping the stuff in the ground shows good business acumen and it appears as virtue signalling.

Absolutely wonderful! A real physicist, not a pretend psycho scientist from the Church of Climate Scientology. He is labelled a sceptic as every scientist should be. Nothing is true until it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt and nothing in this man made Global Warming is true. Since Rene Descartes, a rational scientist is a sceptic and the diametric opposite of an acolyte, true believer or opportunist.

At 79 years, he is not the slightest bit concerned about working his way up the ladder or playing politics with science. “atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Princeton University”.
Now try to fool him with your graphs and pictures of lonely rats and starving polar bears.

As I commented on Watt, exactly where did the ‘killed by climate change’ statements come from?

I had a look at the government statement that declares the little bugger 100% mort and the word ‘climate’ is nowhere in the entire body of text.

All the claims that Climate Change(tm) was to blame seem have been made by third parties like the Wilderness Society but don’t actually go into details as to which actual bit of climate changed to kill these little beasties.

To recap, this is a group of rodents that apparently lived on a glorified sandbar that hardly anyone actually seemed to visit. Correct me if I am wrong but we don’t even have hard proof as to when these rats arrived on the island or even if they are the same rats, and we don’t even know the method of their death. So much assumed. So little proven.

It’s not climate change™ to blame anyway but government incompetence for firstly failing to start a captive breeding program earlier and secondly, when it was recognised how critical the situation was in 2014 with only about ten individuals left, it took FIVE MONTHS to get permission to capture the remaining ones and by the time permission was granted, there were none left.

Rats are endemic in human society. I have read that you are never more than 40′ from a rat. They carried the Black Death and killed hundres of millions of people. Like rats. They are very dangerous vectors for many diseases and the enemy of mankind.

So here we have a government body spending our money to save a few rats unfortunate enough to be on a tiny desert island simple because they are allegedly slightly different from other rats. That used to be called natural selection. Personally, they should not have been rescued at any cost. Snakes and rats and spiders were never part of any island eco system. That’s why Ireland and New Zealand do not have snakes. Nothing to do with St. Patrick.

The world spends fortunes trying to eliminate rats in an endless battle against the vermin, especially from island communities where they devastate the wildlife and a few caring government funded ecologists think they are essential for our well being and want to rescue them. Why? I declare shennanigans.

Macquarie Island, the preferred gulag for climate reprobates, has been rid of rats at great expense to the Australian taxpayer and now we are to husband a rat population elsewhere; really, we need to stop hunting down these examples of policy cognitive dissonance as some sage green schoolchild may be offended by it.

19 Feb: Big League Politics: It’s Time To Send The CO2-Obsessed Back To Science Class
By Jonathon Moseley
I. Failing Freshman Statistics
The vast majority of the Earth is not being measured by weather stations. As we try to compare temperatures earlier in time, the poor coverage grows radically worse the farther back in time we go toward 1880.
The Earth’s surface measures 196.9 million square miles. Today, there are an estimated 10,100 weather stations world-wide, in addition to 1,000 free-floating buoys completely useless for measuring climate change..
That means that if the temperature measurements were spread evenly across the Earth’s surface (they aren’t), there would be 1 weather station for every 19,495 square miles of the Earth’s surface. That’s almost the size of the State of Maryland (12,407 square miles)…READ ONhttps://bigleaguepolitics.com/moseley-its-time-to-send-the-co2-obsessed-back-to-science-class/

20 Feb: Commentary: How ‘global warming’ became ‘climate change’ and the danger of euphemisms
by Victor Davis Hanson
The reinvention of vocabulary can often be more effective than any social protest movement. Malarial swamps can become healthy “wetlands.” Fetid “dumps” are often rebranded as green “landfills.”

Global warming was once a worry about too much heat. It implied that man-made carbon emissions had so warmed the planet that life as we knew it would soon be imperiled without radical changes in consumer lifestyles.
Yet in the last 30 years, record cold spells, inordinate snow levels and devastating rains have been common. How to square that circle?

Substitute “climate change” for global warming. Presto! Any radical change in weather could be perceived as symptomatic of too much climate-changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Suddenly, blizzards, deluges and subzero temperatures meant that typically unpredictable weather was “haywire” because of affluent Westernized lifestyles…

20 Feb: Accuweather: Blizzard to unfold from central Plains to Upper Midwest this weekend
By Alex Sosnowski
The same storm set to bring feet of snow to parts of Arizona and significant snow to the rest of the Southwest late this week will swing onto the Plains and evolve into a blizzard over part of the north-central United States this weekend.
The weekend storm, like the storm from the middle of the week, will track toward the Great Lakes. However, the storm this weekend will be significantly stronger…

20 Feb: Accuweather: Major snowstorm to bury Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California mountains
By Alex Sosnowski
A storm will unload feet of snow, create blizzard conditions and shut down travel over the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California during the latter part of this week…

15 Feb: Herald, Washington State: Near-record cold pushes emergency shelters to their limits
The Salvation Army, expecting to stay open for another week of freezing temps, needs volunteers.
by Lizz Giordano
So far, this month has been the third coldest February on record, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle. That’s led to the doors being kept open at many cold weather shelters in Snohomish County for 12 consecutive nights…
“It could go down as a record cold month,” said Jeff Michalski, a meteorologist with the weather service. “It’s still calling for below-normal temperatures for the next two weeks.”…

“Our biggest need is volunteers and blankets,” Reedy said.
In the mornings, once the emergency shelter space closes for the day, Reedy said some folks head to the library to stay warm, but many don’t leave the Salvation Army property…
The icy conditions also have put her volunteers at risk.
“A huge concern is making sure volunteers can get to the shelter and home safely. We have a shift change at 11 p.m. and 3 a.m,” Jones said. “We’re hanging in there.”…https://www.heraldnet.com/news/near-record-cold-pushes-emergency-shelters-to-their-limits/

16 Feb: WSBT22: Michigan City bridge buckles in the cold
by Katlin Connin
A knockout blow for a popular local bridge. Our recent record cold snap is part of the reason.
The Franklin Street Bridge in Michigan City is closed, and that’s making it very tough to get to the lakeshore…

20 Feb: Palm Springs Desert Sun: No floods or road closures expected from this Coachella Valley rain, but by Friday look for snow
by Colin Atagi
In other weather news, a winter storm warning is in effect for Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties through 1 a.m. Friday.
If it falls, forecasters predict, the snow could reach as low as the 2,000-foot level on the San Jacinto Mountains, although clouds may prevent people from seeing snow-capped peaks until Friday, Connolly said.

I have to repeat, this is the coldest summer I can remember in Melbourne. A lot of cold days. One or two days over 30C in January and February. Cloudy. Grey. Nothing like the summers I knew. No long dry hot days close to 40C and lasting for a week or more. One January where only three days were under 30C. It was shocking that children started school in such heat in early February but this year the automatic thermostat turned on the gas heater, which was a bit of a shock.

I’m in complete concurrence with TdeF as there’s only been two or three days this summer on which I have not been able to sit and work in the shed during the day; in each of the preceding five summers there’s been roughly twenty such days. In mid winter it’s too cold in the shed for about the same number of days; with any luck this will be a correspondingly mild winter, well a lot of luck I imagine.

20 Feb: CBS Sacramento: South Lake Tahoe Logs 13-Below Zero Low, Shattering Record
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE (AP) — Record-cold weather followed the latest snowstorm into the Sierra, where the overnight low dropped to minus 13 degrees (minus 25 degrees Celsius) at South Lake Tahoe.
The National Weather Service says the new record low set early Tuesday along the Nevada-California line smashed the previous record of minus 8 degrees (minus 22 C) for the date set in 1990.
The service forecast highs in the mid- to upper-20s at Tahoe on Wednesday before lows drop to single digits Wednesday night, then back below zero Thursday night as another winter storm system makes its way through the region.
In eastern Nevada, the service expects lows of minus 4 to minus 6 (minus 20 to 21 C) in White Pine County along the Utah line late Tuesday or early Wednesday.https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2019/02/20/south-lake-tahoe-13-below-zero-record/

20 Feb: AP: US steps up winter-warfare training as global threat shifts
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
MARINE MOUNTAIN WARFARE TRAINING CENTER, Calif. — Hunkered down behind a wall of snow, two U.S. Marines melt slush to make drinking water after spending the night digging out a defensive position high in the Sierra Nevada. Their laminated targeting map is wedged into the ice just below the machine gun.

Nearly 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) up at a training center in the California mountains, the air is thin, the snow is chest high and the temperature is plunging. But other Marines just a few kilometers away are preparing to attack, and forces on both sides must be able to battle the enemy and the unforgiving environment…

Lance Cpl. Reese Nichols, from Pensacola, Florida, and Lance Cpl. Chase Soltis of Bozeman, Montana, dug their defensive position a day ago, and they’ve been watching all night for enemy movement, while using a small burner to melt snow to stay hydrated.
The hardest part, said Nichols, is “boiling water 24/7. And the cold. It’s cold.”…

The cold and wet conditions force the Marines to use snowshoes and cross-country skis to get around. They wrap white camouflage around their weapons, struggle to keep the ammunition dry and learn how to position their machine guns so they don’t sink into the powdery snow.
“It’s kind of overwhelming coming up here. Many of them have never been exposed to snow before,” said Staff Sgt. Rian Lusk, chief instructor for the mountain sniper course. “You’re constantly having to dig or move up the mountain range. So, it’s physically taxing, but more than anything, I think, it’s mentally taxing.”…https://www.apnews.com/372aa8ded6c643c5884341c81d40ec4c

19 Feb: ScienceDaily: The global impact of coal power
Source: ETH Zurich
Summary: With data and modelling from almost 8,000 coal power plants, researchers present the most comprehensive global picture to date of climate and human health impacts from coal power generation.

Coal-fired power plants produce more than just the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. When burning coal, they also release particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury — thus damaging the health of many people around the world in various ways. To estimate where action is most urgently required, the research group led by Stefanie Hellweg from ETH Zurich’s Institute of Environmental Engineering modelled and calculated the undesired side effects of coal power for each of the 7,861 power plant units in the world.

Uneven pollution levels
The results, which were recently published in the journal Nature Sustainability, show that China and the US are the two largest producers of coal power, but power plants in India take the highest toll in the world when it comes to health. Central Europe, North America and China all have modern power plants, but Eastern Europe, Russia and India still have many older power plants equipped with insufficient flue gas treatment…

“More than half of the health effects can be traced back to just one tenth of the power plants. These power plants should be upgraded or shut down as quickly as possible,” says Christopher Oberschelp, the lead author of the study…

Coal power threatens to grow worldwide
Global coal resources will last for several hundred years, so the harmful emissions need to be limited politically…

Reducing the negative health effects of coal power generation should be a global priority: “But further industrialisation, especially in China and India, poses the risk of aggravating the situation instead,” write the researchers led by Hellweg in their article.

The initial investment costs for the construction of a coal power plant are high, but the subsequent operating costs are low. Power plant operators thus have an economic interest in keeping their plants running for a long time. “The best option is therefore to not build any new coal power plants. From a health and environment perspective, we should move away from coal and towards natural gas — and in the long term, towards renewable energy sources,” says Oberschelp.https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190219111718.htm

“The Anthropocene: all that CO2 and the only mammal extinction is a brown rat on a desert island”

Wait.

There is another extinction! A late contender …

A car made from waste plastic has been forced to abort its mission to the South Pole because of bad weather.
Solar Voyager was set to be the first solar-powered expedition to reach the world’s most southernmost point.
But despite it being Antarctica’s summer, unexpected heavy snow has meant progress has been slow, and now the team have had to turn around.
The team from Holland say they’ve still achieved their main mission: to prove plastic waste can be put to good use, though they’d rather people avoided using single-use plastic altogether.

He might have had a few weird ideas, but sayonara freedom of speech…..

Well, we know we live in a marxist dictatorship, I suspect he was sitting right on the raw nerve with some of the stuff he goes on about…..they dont like it.

I often see stuff in the Aust Bolshevik Sollective about “un-approved” medical or science views that get the “you know, this is how you talk to some poor dear who , well, just doesnt quite toe the party line you know…..and well……we just have to feel sorry for them….”

I retch when I see that….scary stuff…..the iron fist of censorship in the govt glove….

The fact of the gesture is evidence that we’ve mismanaged the relationship and now the first cog has been moved under the ratchet.

Maybe the 5G ban on Huawei triggered it but if you look deeper you’ll ask where is the Australian hi tech electronics industry capable of producing a home grown independent Internet of Things without the vulnerability of needing to incorporate foreign made core devices?

Well we defunded that sort of research decades ago and today’s CSIRO is a hollowed out spent force and the painful consequences are finally becoming apparent.

About a week ago, on channel 9 Melbourne, I saw part of a story about research being done on Green Sea Turtles on the Barrier Reef. ( The GBR ). Unfortunately I did not see the whole story , as I began yelling at the TV , and my wife suggested that perhaps I should leave. I did leave, but not before I gained an understanding of the content of the propaganda, sorry, news item.
Apparently global warming is having an impact on the development of the eggs of the Green Sea Turtle, causing more females that males to hatch from any clutch of eggs.
From what I understand, sand is not very good at absorbing heat from the air, pretty much like water. Sand is heated by the sun. When the sand is hot, and your feet are burning, as you race across the beach with you favourite blow up toy, just a few centimetres under the surface, the sand is cool. Sand is not not particularly efficient at conducting heat. The heat remains where the sun shines. I know this from sleeping on the beach, with little clothing, and perhaps a bit too much hops. As the sun goes down, the sand gets very cold, except under the surface, where the
temperature remains pretty constant. Turtles know this, that is why they bury there eggs, in moist sand, at a depth that will not be influenced by solar radiation. Turtles have been doing this for some hundreds of thousands of years, and by all accounts it has been successful. The researchers, apparently Ph.D. students, dig the eggs up, move them to a control site, and pour water from a plastic water can on the displaced clutch of eggs, in varying amounts.
That is as far as I got before loosing it.
And the researchers in all probability got a grant to run around, semi naked, on a tropical island, with other like mined contemporaries. The bastards……

The land hasn’t been properly surveyed to the north on the PNG mainland, because its PNG- and Australian researchers have more difficulty going there. It’s highly likely the species, or the subspecies as it more likely is, exists to the north on or about the PNG mainland; even the earlier researchers themselves noted there should be more surveys done to the north before classifying it as occurring only on the only island where it has been documented.

Also, boats carrying dogs regularly land on these small islands, with predictable results on wildlife. People carrying dogs to remote islands have nothing to do with climate change but this is conveniently ignored, the whole farce is therefore a story based on geographical and political boundaries necessitating where researchers can go and how they classify extinction, which in this case qualifies as a ‘local extinction’, which is itself an oxymoron. Politicians then take over and complete the story.

20 Feb: GWPF: WaPo: White House Readies Panel To Assess If Climate Change Poses A National Security Threat
The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security is being spearheaded by William Happer, a National Security Council senior director.
The White House is working to assemble a panel to assess whether climate change poses a national security threat, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, a conclusion that federal intelligence agencies have affirmed several times since President Trump took office.

The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security, which would be established by executive order, is being spearheaded by William Happerr, a National Security Council senior director. Happer, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, has said that carbon emissions linked to climate change should be viewed as an asset rather than a pollutant.

The New York Times cites a 14 February White House memo, reporting that the panel will consist of 12 members, including Happer, which the paper describes as a “climate denialist” whose views are “sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus”. Happer has suggested that higher CO2 levels would be beneficial, notes the Guardian. Other outlets covering the news, including Reuters, Axios, DeSmog and Vox, which runs with the headline: “Trump’s pick to chair new climate panel once said CO2 has been maligned like ‘Jews under Hitler’”. Separately, a feature in the Independent reports that military leaders “from the US to the Netherlands…are speaking up on climate change” and the threat it poses to security.

21 Feb: Reuters: White House readies panel to question security risks of climate
by Timothy Gardner
The White House is readying a presidential panel that would question U.S. military and intelligence reports showing human-driven climate change poses risks to national security, according to a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The effort comes as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. production of crude oil, natural gas, and coal, and unwind regulatory hurdles on doing so.

The panel, to be formed by an executive order by Trump, would be headed by William Happer, a retired Princeton University physics professor currently on the White House’s National Security Council.
Happer disagrees with mainstream climate science and believes that emissions of the main greenhouse gas that scientists blame for climate change – carbon dioxide – benefits the planet by helping plants grow…

“These scientific and national security judgements have not undergone a rigorous independent and adversarial scientific peer review to examine the certainties and uncertainties of climate science, as well as implications for national security,” the document said…
The White House is holding a meeting on Feb. 22 in the situation room to discuss an upcoming executive order by Trump to set up the committee, made up of 12 or fewer people, said the document, dated Feb. 14. The document was first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change, arguing that the causes and impacts are not yet settled. As a ***temporary blast of frigid cold hit the Midwest last month he said on Twitter “What the Hell is going on with Global Wa(r)ming. Please come back fast, we need you!”

Happer, who does not have a background in climate, has served on the NSC since 2018 as deputy assistant to the president for emerging technologies, and complained that carbon dioxide emissions have been maligned, a position strongly opposed by a vast majority of climate scientists.
Happer said on CNBC in 2014 that the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”…

Francesco Femia, the co-founder of the Center for Climate & Security, a non-profit research and policy group, called the panel a “sham committee” that could put a chill on further analysis of climate risks from some members of military and intelligence agencies.
“I am worried there will be a reticence among some in the future to include those risks in their public reports for fear of having to deal with this political committee in the White House, because ultimately the heads of departments and agencies serve at the pleasure of the president,” Femia said.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climatechange/white-house-readies-panel-to-question-security-risks-of-climate-idUSKCN1Q92AR

21 Feb: Guardian: White House climate change panel to include man who touted emissions
William Happer, a physicist who has suggested higher levels of carbon dioxide are beneficial, would be on committee
Emily Holden
However, Trump and his cabinet have dismissed several federal government reports that said climate change is worsening and already threatens public health and the economy in the US.
“I don’t believe it,” Trump said in November. His agencies have suggested that the reports are based on the worst-case scenario, although the scientists who wrote them said they project what ***could happen based on current trends…

20 Feb: The Hill: New White House special climate panel to include climate denier
By Miranda Green
In the past, Happer has said that carbon emissions, a major contributor to greenhouse gas, should be seen as an asset. In 2017 he called pushes to reverse global warming “sort of a cult movement in the last five or 10 years” and called climate change science “tremendously exaggerated.”…

20 Feb: Vanity Fair: Trump’s New Climate Czar: Carbon Dioxide Has Been Treated Just Like “Jews Under Hitler”
William Happer, who is spearheading a proposed White House panel on climate change, believes CO2 “has undergone decade after decade of abuse, for no reason.”
by Bess Levin
So, just who is William Happer? According to the Post, he’s a former Energy Department staffer under George H.W. Bush who joined this White House in September to work on “emerging technologies,” and, naturally, has no formal training as a climate scientist. But what he lacks in relevant knowledge he makes up for in a deep and abiding love for carbon dioxide, which he said during a summit in December 2016 is “not a pollutant at all” and is “actually a benefit to the earth,” despite having been unfairly maligned by “decade after decade of abuse, for no reason.” And, of course, he thinks that abuse has some historical parallels…

Other choice quotes from Happer, who, shockingly, has received money from the fossil-fuel industry:
•“If plants could vote, they would vote for coal.” November 2015
•“It’s not as though if you double CO2 you make a big difference. You make a barely detectable difference.” November 2017
•“Let me point out that if you have a well-designed coal plant, what comes out of the stack of the plant is almost the same thing that comes out of a person’s breath.” December 2016
•“I am trying to explain to my fellow Americans the serious damage that will be done to us, and indeed to the whole world, by cockamamie policies to ‘save the planet’ from CO2.” March 2016
•“Warming and increased CO2 will be good for mankind.” May 2010…https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/william-happer-climate-change-panel

Is that all so far? Well at that rate it will take centuries for the so called climate change catastrophe to impact the world in some serious way. We have plenty of time to switch to some yet unknown power source that will solve all our issues. That is if mankind is still around and we haven’t nuked ourselves to death or some killer asteroid has hit us. Then again we all know that it’s just a scam so it will continue as long as there is money in Green Energy.

VIDEO: 6min46sec: 20 Feb: Fox News: Lara Logan tells ‘Hannity’ about rampant liberal, anti-Trump bias across news media: ‘Nobody owns me’
By Frank Miles
Former CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday night to speak about what she claims is a rampant liberal and anti-Trump bias across the news media, but she proclaimed she is independent from the political spectrum…
Logan noted that journalistic standards have slipped and audiences know it…

“The media everywhere is mostly liberal. But in this country, 85 percent of journalists are registered Democrats. So that’s just a fact, right?” Logan, who is South African, previously asked on an episode of retired Navy SEAL Mike Ritland’s “Mike Drop” podcast…
“Unless you seek out Breitbart on your computer, you’re probably not even going to know what the other side is saying,” Logan said on the “Mike Drop” podcast.

“This is the problem that I have. There’s one Fox, and there’s many, many, many more organizations on the left,” Logan continued. “The problem is the weight of all these organizations on one side of the political spectrum. When you turn on your computer, or you walk past the TV, or you see a newspaper headline in the grocery store, if they’re all saying the same thing, the weight of that convinces you that it’s true. You don’t question it, because everyone is saying it.”…”

TWEET: Anthony Guglielmi, Chief Communications Officer @Chicago_Police & Public Information Co-Chair for Major Cities Chiefs Assoc
Press Briefing: Jussie Smollet is under arrest and in custody of detectives. At 9am at #ChicagoPolice Headquarters, Supt Eddie Johnson, Commander of Area Central Detectives Edward Wodnicki will brief reporters on the investigation prior to the defendants appearance in court.https://twitter.com/AJGuglielmi/status/1098544814692466688

pre Jussie being taken into custody. ABC turns the story over to a “music and pop culture reporter” now that it’s just another hoax:

headline on ABC’s “Just In” page:

Turns out Donald Trump Jr might have been right about Jussie Smollett all along
Analysis By music and pop culture reporter Paul Donoughue

no naming of the Nigerian brothers; mentions a “Fox” statement made before the charge was laid against Smollett, when they should have said “20th Century Fox”; doesn’t mention their own anti-Trump exploitation of the fake story; continues to allege lower case “president” Trump is divisive and hate crimes have increased since he became President:

21 Feb: ABC: The Jussie Smollett case became a political tool before we ever really knew what happened
By music and pop culture reporter Paul Donoughue
At the beginning, it all seemed clear-cut: Jussie Smollett was a victim, and this was an example of the real-world consequences of a president’s divisive language…
How quickly things change
This week, Ms Pelosi quietly deleted her tweet. Ms Harris said “the facts are still unfolding” — and declined to comment further. Mr Booker said he would wait until “all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources” before weighing in again.
That’s because Smollett’s story started to be undermined — and has now largely fallen over, with the news on Thursday that he has been charged with filing a false report…

Last week they arrested two men they suspected were involved…
By Friday last week, the men were released without charge. Police said their “investigation had shifted” after discussions with the pair — brothers who were acquaintances of Smollett’s — and that they were keen to speak again with the actor…
Fox, as recently as Thursday morning, said it was standing by its star, denying reports he was being written out of the show…

From the outset, Smollett vigorously denied the accusation he was faking, including during a high-profile US TV interview: VIDEO: ABC AMERICA: GAIL ROBERTS INTERVIEW WITH SMOLLETT

He also said that his story would have been more readily accepted had he said the culprit was “a Muslim or a Mexican or someone black”.
That is presumably because it would have fit a pre-existing narrative…
With Smollett now the one facing charges, some say this is an example of how quickly narratives can be asserted and weaponised in the era of social media.
“If you are inclined to believe that America — especially in the age of Donald Trump — is plagued by racism and homophobia, none of these extremely fishy details seemed to register,” said the writer Noah Rothman in an opinion piece in The New York Times…

Hate crimes are on the rise in the United States. More and more people really are facing the violence of prejudice, according to an FBI report released last year…
To suspect Smollett of lying from the get-go would have been a strange and dangerous precedent to set, as author Roxane Gay pointed out last week…
But instant commentary is almost a necessity in 2019 if you are a celebrity or a politician — or anyone with a Twitter account…https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-21/the-jussie-smollett-case-became-a-political-tool/10828480

18 Feb: Reason.com: Robby Soave: Jussie Smollett Reminds Us That Some Hate Crimes Are Hoaxes—and the Statistics Are a Mess
As the investigation turns on the Empire star, it’s important not to confuse “reality” with “narrative.”
While it’s true that the FBI’s count of hate crimes rose 17 percent from 2016 to 2017, it’s important to note that 1,000 additional agencies reported information to the FBI in the latter year. It should go without saying, but as the number of agencies participating in the FBI’s count of hate crimes grows more numerous, the total number of hate crimes will undoubtedly rise. This does not necessarily mean that hate crimes are surging—just that the authorities undercounted them previously…

A few months ago, many in the media became obsessed with a figure from the Anti-Defamation League, which purportedly showed that anti-Semitism had spiked a whopping 57 percent under Trump. But part of that statistic reflected an increase in bomb threats against U.S.-based Jewish institutions perpetrated by just one person: a deranged Israeli teenager. Anti-Semitic violence, according to the ADL’s count, actually decreased 47 percent…https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/18/jussie-smollett-hate-crime-hoax-empire

16 Feb: Quadrant: Jussie Smollett’s ABC
by Roger Franklin
In regard to the apparent Smollett hoax, the chronology of its coverage is telling. Immediately upon news breaking of the purported incident, the ABC went with two stories, one on its website plus an audio interview with an Empire executive who left no doubt he believed every word and, predictably, saw Smollett’s ordeal as an example of the further mestastising of the Trump cancer. It’s worth hearing, especially the compere’s editorial sigh at the item’s conclusion.

Those items were broadcast on January 31. As Smollett’s story disintegrated — no witnesses, no CCTV footage, details being added, omitted and changing with the wind — the ABC reported not a word of the mounting evidence that the entire affair was a put-up job. That changed on Friday, February 15, after US media reports that police in Chicago were about charge Mr Smollett with filing a false report. The ABC’s response? Why, it broke its silence on the case by publishing a wire story quoting US authorities as saying it had not been established that the actor is a gross fabricator…https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/media-2/2019/02/jussie-smollett-and-their-abc/

19 Feb: RenewEconomy: 100% renewables can be reached quickly, but it needs a plan
by Giles Parkinson
University researchers and academics do not typically move this quickly: the cadence of their work is usually dictated by the need for detailed analysis, papers and conference presentations.
But when an ACT research team led by Andrew Blakers and Matthew Stocks this month announced the result of research about the shift to renewables and its impact on emissions, they were quick to respond.

Blakers and Stocks’ research came to two conclusions that are important to the current debate about the energy transition: mainly that shifting to 100 per cent renewables is technically feasible, and at the current rates of deployment, enough wind and solar could be built by 2032, just 13 years away.

They were not particularly controversial observations, but given the constant push back by conservatives, ideologues and fossil fuel promoters that a 100% renewables is impossible, and repeated assertions that wind and solar can never be built quick enough, they were important points to make.

***What upset their colleagues, and which provoked such a rapid response in social and mainstream media, was the claim that this transition was largely achievable if the government “got out of the way” and could actually deliver the country’s Paris commitment for economy-wide emissions reduction targets 5 years early.

The colleagues argued that not only do they have their numbers wrong, it also gives the impression that the government could do nothing and still make their Paris targets. ANU climate change expert Frank Jotzo, in these pages (LINK), and Bill Hare, in The Guardian, both made this point forcefully…

The researchers, including Blakers, Stock, Jotzo and more than 40 other academics, local and international experts, regulators and government representatives, have now grouped together – following a three-day symposium in Canberra – to argue that yes, a quick transition towards 100 per cent renewables is possible and it will play a central role in emissions reductions.
But, and this is a very big but, it does need a plan, and a carefully drawn one at that…

It is not sufficient, they say, to simply build enough wind and solar to meet the supply needs of the economy. Market reform is desperately needed to keep up with technology changes and reflect the different capabilities of the new equipment.

Obviously, more investment in storage is also needed, but this needs to be co-ordinated. More demand response is also required, and so too is investment electricity transmission, and there are emerging bottlenecks, and market settings are not delivering for consumers…
“The shift to 100% renewables will be accompanied by the inevitable phasing out of existing coal power plants. Achieving a smooth transition will require careful attention to coal power workers, their communities and energy consumers.”…

Jotzo told RenewEconomy that the three-day symposium included a “stellar cast” of researchers, industry representatives, regulators, network operators, and international experts. (RenewEconomy contributor david Leitch, from ITK Consulting, was there for a couple of sessions and wrote this piece last week: “Why 50 per cent renewables by 2030 is such an easy target” (LINK)…

“The symposium offered a very optimistic picture of what can be done,” Jotzo says.
“There is agreement among all these experts that renewables will carry the day in Australia, that’s for sure. The international experts are crystal clear about where the journey is going in australia … it is in renewables.”…

The conclusions were that it was not quite as simple as asking the government to get out of the way. If anything, a lack of action could impede progress and create particularly messy transition.

21 Feb: UK Telegraph: End of the gas hob as government advisers say new homes should be ‘off gas grid’ by 2025
by Jillian Ambrose
Gas hobs could be banned from being installed in new homes within seven years over fears that they are harming the environment.
Under new plans unveiled on Thursday by climate watchdogs no new homes will be connected to the gas grid after 2025 at the latest, in order for the UK to meet its legally binding climate targets.
The proposals, from Government’s official climate advisers, would call time on new gas radiators, boilers and cooking hobs.

***The move away from gas hobs is likely to disappoint many home cooks who prefer them to electric as they find the heat is easier to control.
Instead, the Committee on Cimate Change has said new homes should rely solely on low-carbon heat sources…

21 Feb: UK Times: Ban gas hobs and heating in six years, ministers told
by Ben Webster
Developers must be forbidden from connecting homes to the gas grid and should instead be forced to install low-carbon heating systems, according to a report by the Committee on Climate Change. The move would mean that newly built homes would not be able to have gas stoves and would need to be fitted with alternatives such as induction hobs.
The Home Builders Federation condemned the proposal, saying that it would make houses harder to sell because gas boilers were cheaper and consumers liked them…

21 Feb: BBC: Climate change: Ban gas grid for new homes ‘in six years’
By Roger Harrabin
In cities, new housing estates and flats should be kept warm by networks of hot water, says the report.
The water could be heated by waste heat from industry.
An alternative approach is to use heat pumps, which draw warmth from the sea or lakes; or burn gas from waste.

The report, from the independent Committee on Climate Change, recommends these changes are made to new homes at first because it’s much more economical that way. They say it costs £4,800 to install low-carbon heating in a new home, but £26,300 in an existing house.
What’s more, these systems will only work if homes are insulated to the highest standards so they need little heating…

They are dismayed that emissions from housing suddenly increased last year, when they should be going down…

The committee wants the government to treat renovating the UK’s housing stock as a national infrastructure priority, akin to widening roads.
“There’s already government cash for help-to-buy,” said Prof King. “That should be extended to help-to-insulate.”…

The report says upgrades and repairs to existing homes should include plans for shading and ventilation to combat the extreme heatwaves expected in future.
They should also have measures to reduce indoor moisture, improve air quality, water efficiency and protection in homes at risk of flooding…

***The chair of the Committee, Lord Deben, is being investigated by the Lords Standards Committee to see if he has breached rules by not declaring income from firms that benefit from pro-active climate policies. Lord Deben says he has followed advice on the rules.https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47306766

15 Feb: EnergyNetworks: Energy networks respond to Bright Blue report on gas grid decarbonisation
Responding to the Bright Blue report entitled “Pressure in the pipeline: decarbonising the UK’s gas”, David Smith, Chief Executive of Energy Networks Association, says:
“Britain’s extensive gas network infrastructure means that the public and the wider economy are able to access the energy they need quickly and reliably throughout the year, as and when they need it. It’s vital that we decarbonise the gas we are using so we can reach our climate change targets, whilst still being able to take advantage of those important attributes.

21 Feb: Reuters: Spain proposes $53 billion public investment in climate change plan
by Jose Elias Rodriguez and Isla Binnie; Additional reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel
Spain’s Socialist government announced a 47 billion euro (£40.66 billion) public investment plan on Wednesday to tackle climate change over 10 years, which would be partly financed by issuing green bonds
The proposal, which sets a goal to make Spain carbon neutral by 2050, is a statement of intent as the government faces a general election on April 28…

“We aren’t proposing anything fanciful,” Sanchez told a news conference at the energy and environment ministry…
Overall, Spain’s plan will generate investment worth 200 billion euros, the government said, and should cut its reliance on imported energy to 59 percent from 74 percent over the decade.
This would help the state save 75.4 billion euros in fossil fuel costs over the next 10 years, it said…

21 Feb: Guardian: Extinction Rebellion co-founder ‘shut out’ at London fashion show
Clare Farrell ‘barred’ from Bethany Williams show despite role in producing fashion line
Clare Farrell, co-founder of the environmental action group Extinction Rebellion, claimed she was barred from entering a show at London fashion week two days after helping to organise a protest against the British Fashion Council to highlight the industry’s role in fuelling climate change…
Farrell, a fashion designer, said that she had helped produce Williams’ line, which is dedicated to social justice and sustainability, and that she had not been intending to protest at the event.
“To exclude a designer who was both involved in the production of the line and working to bring attention to the climate and ecological crises from the show is just unbelievable,” she added…

21 Feb: Reuters: U.S. judge dismisses boys’ lawsuit against Trump climate rollbacks
by Jonathan Stempel
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by two Pennsylvania boys and an environmental group seeking to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from rolling back regulations addressing climate change, saying the court does not have power to tell the White House what to do.
Disagreeing with a judge overseeing a similar case in Oregon, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia ruled on Tuesday that the Constitution does not guarantee what the boys and the Clean Air Council called a due process right to a “life-sustaining climate system.” …https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-lawsuit/u-s-judge-dismisses-boys-lawsuit-against-trump-climate-rollbacks-idUSKCN1Q92SA

20 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: EU committee shelves climate concerns to open US trade talks
Amid US threats to slap import tariffs on European cars, the EU is wavering on its commitment to uphold the Paris Agreement through trade negotiations
By Natalie Sauer
A committee of the European Parliament on Tuesday endorsed opening talks. Adopted by 21 votes to 17, the resolution by the committee for international trade (INTA) empowers the European Commission to discuss two trade deals, respectively designed to lift tariffs and iron out bureaucratic hurdles between the two blocs. It goes to a full parliamentary vote in mid-March.
The move flies in the face of European moves to integrate trade and climate action…https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/02/20/eu-committee-shelves-climate-concerns-open-us-trade-talks/

20 Feb: WSJ: Robert Blohm: The Green New Deal’s Impossible Electric Grid
The Democrats’ Green New Deal calls for a fully renewable electric power grid. Regardless of the economic or political challenges of bringing this about, it is likely technologically impossible.

An electric power grid involves second-by-second balancing between generated supply and consumer demand. In the case of a sudden imbalance—such as from the loss of a generator’s output—all the remaining generators on the grid instantaneously pool together. Each one pitches in a small part of the required power to make up for the lost generator fast enough to keep supply and demand balanced.

This doesn’t work for wind and solar because you can’t spontaneously increase wind or sunshine. Hydro power is limited and unevenly distributed around the country. And for safety reasons, nuclear power—even if the Green New Dealers accepted it—can’t be cranked up to neutralize imbalances. Nor can consumer demand be suddenly reduced enough.

Fossil-fuel turbines, by contrast, very naturally compensate for sudden supply outages. The inertia of the spinning mass of rotors provides the extra energy needed to compensate for the loss for the first few seconds. (Wind-rotor inertia is too short-lived.) Meanwhile the generators’ on-line reserve capacity kicks in, giving a rapid boost in power output to prevent the turbines from slowing down. That substitute power, called “governor response,” lasts as long as 15 minutes. During that time a single replacement generator ramps up to compensate entirely for the loss. All the turbines on the grid are thereby restored to their original speed, and the governor response is rearmed for the next disturbance.

“United We Roll left Red Deer, Alta., on Valentine’s Day, intent on bringing a message to the federal Liberal government that “Pipelines need to be built. Bill C-69 and 48 are obviously a problem. And (so is), the carbon tax,” said one of the organizers, Jason Corbeil, referencing federal legislation seeking to change the environmental review process for energy projects and ban oil tankers from British Columbia’s north.

You could hear the honking of the horns of the big rigs that ferried protesters to Ottawa as part of the convoy, which organizers said brought about 200 vehicles downtown.”

In Nat’l Geo’s shrill coverage of this, here; https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/first-mammal-extinct-climate-change-bramble-cay-melomys/ . . they attempt to connect SLR to the shrinkage of the cay from 9.8 acres to 6.2 acres, over the past 2 decades. They acknowledge that sea level has only risen “by almost eight inches between 1901 and 2010, a rate unparalleled in the last 6,000 years. And around the Torres Strait, sea level has risen at almost twice the global average rate between 1993 and 2014.” Where’d they get that last bit from?? So anyway, in the past 20 yrs there’s maybe been a couple of inches+/- of SLR. That’s not going to be the driver in the shrinking of the cay.

But then they go this extra step, seemly claiming that this is all “anthropogenic climate change-driven sea-level rise.” Since 1901?

Is anyone actually claiming that most of SLR over the past century+ was caused by AGHG emissions?

Would like to see a climate scientist actually sign their name to such a statement.

The World spent $1,000,000,000 on rat poison last year, so the odds are definitely stacked against the rats. The weather or climate are one of their smallest problems as they are imbued with native cunning that has kept them going for millions of years, unlike Warmistas and Greenies.

If by freak chance any land animal does establish on a cay, every day is always russian roulette.

The usual height of 1.5-3m is fixed by the processes of accretion etc. so a moderately rising sea level is of no consequence, and “Even fairly large cays are vulnerable to complete destruction by severe hurricanes or typhoons” – they always have and always will be.